Results tagged “theoffice”

After Seattlest arrived at the office today, saw all of these big white trailers across the street, and had our little "Well, this is unusual" moment of tilted equilibrium, we got curious. Is this another episode of our friendly German invasion of last August?

On this Valentine's Day, we also take the time to honor the kind of love that exists between two straight dudes -- the primarily heterosexual feelings that a man has for his BFF. Exhibit A: Stan and Kyle. Exhibit B: Jay and Silent Bob. Exhibit C: Matt and Ben, the celebrity spoof of the relationship between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, focusing on the period right before they became famous (i.e., the making of Good Will Hunting). Except in this case, the duo didn't so much write the Oscar-winning screenplay that catapulted them to celebrity status as it literally fell out of sky, fully composed, into Ben's apartment while the two aspiring stars were working on a whole other project: their film adaptation of Catcher in the Rye.

Coming home from work on the bus last night, we got to thinking about how even getting to vote on a light-rail package this year is going to be an uphill fight. The dire prospects for light rail anytime soon pushed us to extrapolate the costs to our psyche of waiting during the ride home.

Generally after the warm, fuzzy glow of our New Year's hangover wears off, Seattlest is left staring into the abyss of January without much to cling to, except our quickly fading memories of the resolutions we made and the knowledge that tax season is fast approaching.

As an alumnus of Centralia Community College (out of boredom, we took a Latin class there one fall) and former southwest Washington resident, we've been following the flooding thataway with interest. A friend of ours just passed along two emails from K. in Centralia, and they can't be beat for a you-are-there feel that balances some of the apocalyptic news coverage -- let's face it, if nothing terrible happened to you, you aren't news. On...

Tonight, the nation's hardcore gamblers' eyes will be on Seattle as our fair burgh hosts Monday Night Football.

Someone just forwarded Seattlest the coolest Washington State ferry pictures of all time saying they were embedded in an email going around the office. We'll paste them all below, in order and with the authors commentary intact. If you took these or if you know of a place online where we can link to these, please email Seattlest. [UPDATE: We've been directed to the Bitter End blog, although he didn't take them either. Ross Fotheringham took them, it turns out. Thanks for coming forward, Ross--We removed the cropped versions in favor of your tagged ones.]

The new Office Nomads offices are located in the old Heath Printers building on Boylston, the block west of the SCCC parking garage on Pine -- they have the 5,000+ square feet upstairs to work with. The idea is for rootless freelancers, contract workers, and small biz owners to have a happy office environment with all the accoutrements: desk, T1 network, printer/faxer/copier, a Bunn coffeemaker, and the company of others. (It's bring-your-own-laptop.) There's going to be a full kitchen, and there's also a shower for sweaty bicyclists or gym-goers. "Anybody who's not invited to apply?" we asked. "Well, it's an open space, so counselors and massage therapists wouldn't find it too useful," said Jacob.

Seattlest's favorite crime (just edging Identity Theft) strikes again, this time in one of Seattlest's favorite places. A copper theft at Snoqualmie Pass temporarily disabled highway signs and safety lighting, which had to suck for people navigating the pass in the middle of the night.

Empathy is the issue at hand, though. Lawyer Atticus Finch (David Bishins) is an odd bird. He won't play a backyard game of catch with his son Jem. He won't join in a touch football game. When he chats with Scout, his daughter, his conversation is mainly made up of oracular pronouncements not geared for childish comprehension.He hides his countywide fame as a marksman from his kids. He takes a case that guarantees the whole family will be subject to verbal abuse and gossip. And he's always at the office -- though how busy could a small town in Alabama in 1935 keep him? -- leaving his kids mainly in the housekeeper's care.

Is the office slightly quieter today? Were there fewer parents dropping the little ones off at school this morning? Were there a lot more parked cars in certain spots around Wedgwood, Seward Park or Mercer Island?

We're living in the town that Microsoft Office built, and all in all it's not too shabby. Every once in a while we're struck by something and think, "wow, someone paid upwards of $300 for a graphical representation of a talking paper clip and we used the money to build this..." But generally it's been a pretty good deal for Seattle. Time marches on, though, and what was once the raison d'etre for personal computers becomes just another bloated piece of virus-propagation ware choking up the system drive and gathering dust. The web browser is now the first thing we open in the morning and the last program to close at night, with fewer and fewer between. Google Apps represent the future where browser is the computer. Good thing there's no such beast as Google Apps Enterprise Edition... Doh!

Seattlest doesn't have burning convictions about the lottery. We tend to think people who buy multiple tickets per week are, um, not utilizing their money as effectively as possible.

Or you could get your ass FIRED! Just ask our old pal/arch nemesis/best livejournal trainwreck on the internet the Bicycle Hobo(TM), who just got let go from his job at the Times for visiting Fleshbot.com [evidently NSFW] while ostensibly "working." From the hobo's blog:

Despite the fact that we take the bus from North Seattle to Downtown and avoid completely the I-5 work that's being done, the TV and newspapers had us prepared for the worst. We spent the weekend hiding caches of water and ammo at various safehouses along our commute route, and packed a NOAA weather radio, our Garmin handheld and some flares into our laptop bag this morning, such was the urgency of the pending doom. Then, this morning, nothing happened. Maybe there were a few extra people on the bus who had to stand in the aisle for at least 10 blocks, but they got on at the "last call for North Seattle" stops which Seattlest believe to be within easy bike riding distance of Downtown anyway (similar to the way that people can obviously walk up the stairs to the third floor, but the fourth floor upon which we work is clearly elevator access only).

We spotted Jim from The Office--real name: John Krasinski--having drinks at the Crocodile Friday night with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (who Seattlest Jack chatted with last week).

--Our Greg Nickels will ascend to the office of President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2009.

This week's Comment of the Week was posted as a reply to a post about an immigration announcement out of the office of Mayor Greg Nickels and uses the word "homo" six times, including such creative constructions as "homo liberals," "homo culture," and "liberal homos."

Yesterday Seattlest broke out of the office at noon, grabbed a Tats'trami and headed to Occidental Square. There's nothing like passing a short hour with a book and a gut bomb in a square... Actually, had a book along, but it was only cover for our real mission which was to watch all the little people go about their little lives and they happily obliged by showing up and staring back at us. What? Just eating a sandwich and reading over here. Nosy freak.

Via True Hoop, the News Tribune's Frank Hughes reports today that the Sonics' organization is "enveloped by a cloud of paranoia, mistrust, distrust and, now, anger."

Notes from a day when even Iranians are probably paying more attention to Blake Lewis than to Dick Cheney.

Last year's immigrant rights protest was out of character with the well-publicized, poorly-attended quick hitter marches that seem to be de rigueur in Seattle currently. Thirty thousand people came out for that one and snaked through the streets of Downtown for hours. Yesterday afternoon we left the office a few minutes early to try and track down the 2007 version and after chasing 5th all the way back to Westlake Center and coming up empty we found exactly one dude in the square with some immigrant rights flyers. "Yeah, they're already back at Seattle Center. I stayed here." That was 5:15pm, when the picture to the left was taken across the street from Westlake Center. C'mon guys, can't you linger a little while you're Downtown. You got the permit, take advantage of it. Camp out in the street a little, double back, do something to let us know that a couple thousand immigrants were here looking for their rights. Don't fly down your route like Eastern Washington is a half-block behind simultaneously trying to deport you and employ you under the table.

We're having a hard time deciding if this has any actual value or not, but it's certainly interesting to look at for twenty seconds or so. Sadly, we can really see it coming into play when we're trying to psychosomatic ourselves out of a meeting or something and into a day of bad TV, reading and trying (and failing) to play Wii golf from the couch. Is that my neighbor there with a runny nose? Sniff, sniff. I may have a runny nose myself.... Better stay home today. Three days later we're actually ill, but back at the office because we refuse to burn any more sick time. There's also no field for our symptom: general malaise.

We are looking forward to seeing Dan Zanes & Friends at The Moore this Saturday with our two-year-old daughter. To get ready for the show, Seattlest spoke with Dan via telephone today about music, kids, and kid's music. We were big fans of his 80's band, the Del Fuegos, when we were in high school and are even bigger fans of his new "all ages" homespun folk-fun-rock.

Hot damn, it’s nice out there. Seattlest just got back to the office after a long-but-too-short lunch break. There we were, reading a book in the sun down at the waterfront park, near the Aquarium – lifting our head every so often to peer out at the ferries making their way in and out of Elliott Bay. And the Olympic Mountains, of course, reminding us that it’s just about time to dust off our camping gear.

No Dawgs in the tourney this year and no Seattlest bracket to fill out, but apparently they're going to play the thing anyway and we're inviting you to avoid the office for as long as possible with us on Friday at Spitfire. Come first thing in the morning. Come for a long lunch (I'll probably do this). Skip out early and show up at 3 (or this). We'll be there, or, at least Seattlest Seth will and our drink specials still hold even when he gets mad about something and tries to cancel them:

--Seattle Song scales Mt. Si for the scenery.